Ohio teachers seek a voice in state legislature by running for office

Lingering anger over Senate Bill 5, which limited bargaining rights for public employees unions but was repealed last November, has several teachers seeking election to the state legislature.Marvin Fong, Plain Dealer file

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Remember last year's Senate Bill 5? The legislation that cut public employees' power to collectively bargain, which was met with some support, a lot of outrage and ultimately a ballot measure that struck it down?

Teachers remember, and some took it as their call to run for seats in the Ohio legislature this November.

"SB5 made me very, very angry," said Democrat Judith Cross, a former elementary school teacher and retired judge considered an underdog in her race against Republican House Speaker William G. Batchelder for a seat representing part of Medina County. "And I decided, well, if I'm so angry I need to do something about it rather than just sit back and complain."

Fourteen teachers and former teachers – including two incumbents – are running as Democrats for seats in the Ohio House, and two for seats in the Senate. Some cite SB5 -- passed by the Republican-dominated legislature -- as their main motivator, and others the drastic cuts in education funding. But all of them agree that the legislature could use more people passionate about education.

"If the laws and legislation are being made about public education, why not have a teacher's voice in the Statehouse trying to shape those laws?" asked Donna O'Connor, a special education teacher running against incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Duffey for a House seat in Franklin County. "And as far as the discussion on the other side, they say just throwing money at public education isn't going to solve the problem, but how is underfunding going to solve any problem?"

Keary McCarthy, spokesman for Ohio House Democrats, said he likes teachers' chances in the coming election, despite what he called Republicans' "rigging the system" via the redistricting process. While there was no concerted effort by Democrats to bring more teachers into the legislature, McCarthy attributes the high number of candidates to SB5.

"It's not abnormal that we have teachers running for office," he said, "but I will say this year SB5 was certainly helpful in the recruiting process."

Republican House Majority Leader Rep. Matt Huffman, of Lima, downplayed educators' Outrage over SB5, saying both teachers and superintendents had come to him since it was struck down with suggestions for reforms that were part of SB5.

"I think the primary problem with SB5 was it just had too many elements," he said. "There was something in it for everyone to dislike. And when a piece of legislation gets overweight, it collapses."

Huffman said while he'd generally like to see more education experience in the legislature, he advises against anyone running on only one issue. If candidates are only in the General Assembly because of one issue, such as education, they're not working for all of their constituents, he said.

Democratic Rep. Nickie Antonio of Lakewood, one of the former educators, doesn't think the one-issue focus will be a problem for most teachers.

"I always tell people that everything I needed to know to work with my colleagues in the legislature I learned from troubled teenaged kids," she said. "Teachers are going to understand the education issue, but they'll understand other issues as well."

Antonio hopes to have more former teachers join her in the legislature to bring added knowledge to education issues. She recalled having this feeling last year, along with shock at the way her fellow legislators seemed to regard teachers through the language of SB5.

"I wish that every single legislator had spent one week in a classroom, because if they had, there's no way that they could have believed Senate Bill 5 was the way to go," she said.

O'Connor said her primary concern if elected is finding a consistent funding formula for Ohio's public school system. She dislikes the trend of governors throwing out plans of their predecessors, starting from square one on education funding every four years.

"Our Supreme Court said the overreliance on property taxes is unconstitutional," she said. "So as an elected official, that should be your first priority, to make it constitutional, so that every student in the state of Ohio has access to a quality public education."

Batchelder said many teachers criticizing the current cuts in education funding are misinformed.

"They're trying to say the legislature in the last session did this, and that's not true," he said. "We put a 2 percent cap on the cuts, that's what happened in the House."

There are currently three teachers in the House Republican caucus. Batchelder said the legislaturecould use more school board members and superintendents.

Most of the former-teacher candidates expressed similar concerns about a school-funding formula, along with a general feeling that Ohio legislators should make education more of a priority than they are now.

"They know that public education is under serious threat right now, and they're running because they wanted to have the opportunity to speak up, speak out and change the narrative," said McCarthy. "They want to reestablish some focus on investing in public education."

Kate Irby is a fellow in Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau.

Teachers and former teachers running as Democrats for the Ohio General Assembly (asterisk denotes incumbent).

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